The 20 Most influential finance blogs

Angry Bear

Jan. 19, 2011, 8:16 PM

"Most investors would acknowledge that social media is playing an increasing role in their investment decisions," observes the UK Web site Mindful Money. "Yet no-one has mapped the emerging network of influence likely to be playing a crucial part in those decisions." Until now. The presentation below provides a fascinating map of financial media influencers. The MindfulMoney top 20 should come as no surprise. You probably visit them daily, or at least discuss ideas they have unearthed long before the mainstream media stumbles onto them. Here are the top 20, with links, followed by the presentation. Congratulations to all listed:

There are several thoughts that occur to me regarding this list, but the first is that readers and those who comment make a difference...people bring information and insights that go far beyond slogans of the moment or passions of the day, although those are are part of the deal. This is true for each blog but also from my experience readers usually have at least several blogs on their lists, and often are not organized simply by political economic approach as the first criterion. One can read NC or Economist's View as well as Mish. These blogs are data driven in various ways and often contain many links that allow easy access to data, original materials, or documents so people may check accuracy of the post. In looking for new writers for AB this is one criterion that is mandatory overall, and even decent writers of blogs with strong opinions often omit links to such data or docs, which is unsatisfactory but average for writing. The extra care for targeted audiences pays off. Most are dominated or driven by a person with a strong presentation style and implied forceful personality who spends a lot of time gathering information and is part of the industry. Angry Bear is a multi-authored blog that has more of a magazine format than most. Another recent list ranked 20 top financial blogs includes AB and is based on pageviews, but the notion they added appears to have a definition of finance that includes advice to investors.

Anyway, our readers and commenters deserve the credit in addition to the contributors. Thanks all. Dan